Year 3 News
Week 6 – Halfway There!
Can you believe we are already at the halfway mark of Term 2?
Time flies when you are having this much fun and learning so much! Our Year 3 students have been absolute superstars, diving headfirst into their routines, tackling assessments with incredible resilience, and showing a wonderful growth mindset every single day.
We are so proud of how far they’ve come this term, and we can't wait to see what the second half brings. Here is a sneak peek into what we’ve been up to in our busy learning blocks!
Literacy
It has been a massive couple of weeks in Literacy as our students showcased their reading and comprehension skills through the TORCH Reading Comprehension Assessment and the ACER Reading Adaptive tasks. They approached these sessions with fantastic focus!
In our daily routines, we’ve been sharpening our linguistic tools:
Phonics & Word Wealth: We’ve been diving deep into advanced word patterns, masterfully unpacking suffixes like -ible (turning verbs into adjectives!) and prefixes like super- (making everything extraordinary!).
Grammar Mechanics: Our young writers have been time-traveling through text, learning how to smoothly identify and convert sentences across past, present, and future tenses. They practiced these skills dynamically using cloze activities and sentence-building tasks.
Speaking & Listening: The classroom was buzzing with energy as students stepped into the spotlight for their Oral Presentations. It has been wonderful watching them build confidence, practice clear expression, and use their cue cards to share their ideas.
Deep Dives: We also kicked off a captivating Level 3 Text Study on the text "Strangers on Country", exploring rich vocabulary and deep comprehension.
Numeracy
We’ve been multiplying our efforts and dividing our focus to master some brilliant mathematical concepts over the last fortnight!
Division Dynamics: Students have been working hard in targeted Division Focus Groups, unpacking the mechanics of sharing and grouping. We've been looking at how division connects to our multiplication facts to build ultimate math fluency.
Fantastic Fractions: We officially launched into Fractions (VLP 1 of 11)! The students have started exploring how whole items can be broken down into equal parts, laying a fantastic foundation for the rest of the unit.
Daily Review & Fact Fluency: Every single day, we start our math blocks with high-energy Review and Fact Fluency sessions. These quick-fire practice rounds are doing wonders for keeping our mental math sharp and building lightning-fast recall.
Inquiry
Our young researchers have been operating like true scientists and historians as our major Inquiry Research Projects move into full swing!
The Research Journey: Students have been working diligently in their topic classrooms and independently, using Inquiry PowerPoints and Cue Cards to gather, sort, and organize fascinating facts. Watching them take ownership of their learning journeys has been a massive highlight.
Science Explorations: In our dedicated Science sessions, we've been investigating the world around us, looking at cause, effect, and how things work.
Tech & Cyber Safety: We took a incredibly relevant detour into the digital world with our lesson, "What is AI?". The students had fantastic, insightful discussions about how Artificial Intelligence works and how we can navigate technology safely and responsibly.
Cultural Reflections: In alignment with our classroom learning and upcoming events, students also engaged with meaningful National Sorry Day activities and explored the significance of the Indigenous Jersey, deepening their understanding of history, community, and respect.
What We Are Learning Next
As we head into Week 7, the learning momentum isn't slowing down! We will be consolidating our recent assessment insights to target exactly what the students need next. Here is a general snapshot of what our Grade 3s will be tackling in the coming week:
Literacy: We are diving back into our structured Phonics Plus routines to master our next set of spelling and decoding rules. In writing, students will be channelling their inner authors as we shift our focus toward a Moderated Writing Narrative unit, exploring how to hook a reader, develop interesting characters, and map out a gripping plot.
Numeracy: With the foundations firmly laid, we will be diving deeper into our Fractions unit. Students will move past simple identification to exploring equivalent fractions and comparing fractions of a whole. We will also continue to sharpen our division skills and build mathematical stamina during our daily retrieval sessions.